Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Aircraft Gearbox Dynamics Subject To Electromechanical Actuator Regenerative Energy Flow, Matthew S. Rutledge

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To increase reliability and efficiency, standard aircraft components are being replaced with more electric subsystems aimed to reduce weight, conserve space, and improve energy management. One application of this process replaces standard hydraulic actuators used in flap or aileron movements with electromechanical actuators powered by an external generator. During different types of return movements, the electromechanical actuator will produce regenerative power that flows back through the generator and pulses into the engine-gearbox subsystem. The regenerative power, defined by characteristic amplitude, frequency, and other pulse attributes, coupled with the driving force produced by the engine may dramatically impact the performance and …

Characterization Of Internal Wake Generator At Low Reynolds Number With A Linear Cascade Of Low Pressure Turbine Blades, Chase A. Nessler

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Unsteady flow and its effects on the boundary layer of a low pressure turbine blade is complex in nature. The flow encountered in a low pressure turbine contains unstructured free-stream turbulence, as well as structured periodic perturbations caused by upstream vane row wake shedding. Researchers have shown that these conditions strongly influence turbine blade performance and boundary layer separation, especially at low Reynolds numbers. In order to simulate these realistic engine conditions and to study the effects of periodic unsteadiness, a moving bar wake generator has been designed and characterized for use in the Air Force Research Labs low speed …

Shear Rate Threshold For The Boundary Slip In Dense Polymer Films, Nikolai V. Priezjev

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

The shear rate dependence of the slip length in thin polymer films confined between atomically flat surfaces is investigated by molecular dynamics simulations. The polymer melt is described by the bead-spring model of linear flexible chains. We found that at low shear rates the velocity profiles acquire a pronounced curvature near the wall and the absolute value of the negative slip length is approximately equal to thickness of the viscous interfacial layer. At higher shear rates, the velocity profiles become linear and the slip length increases rapidly as a function of shear rate. The gradual transition from no-slip to steady-state …

The Effective Slip Length And Vortex Formation In Laminar Flow Over A Rough Surface, Anoosheh Niavarani, Nikolai V. Priezjev

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

The flow of viscous incompressible fluid over a periodically corrugated surface is investigated numerically by solving the Navier–Stokes equation with the local slip and no-slip boundary conditions. We consider the effective slip length which is defined with respect to the level of the mean height of the surface roughness. With increasing corrugation amplitude the effective no-slip boundary plane is shifted toward the bulk of the fluid, which implies a negative effective slip length. The analysis of the wall shear stress indicates that a flow circulation is developed in the grooves of the rough surface provided that the local boundary condition …

Effect Of Finite Geometry On Solidification Microstructure In Beam-Based Fabrication Of Thin Wall Structures, Satish C. Kuchi

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With the advent of Rapid Protyping (RP) in the manufacturing industry, many newtechnologies came into development for quick fabrication of materials. One of the most versatile fabrication process among them is additive manufacturing. Laser based manufacturing (LBM) and electron beam manufacturing (EBM) processes use the energy from a laser or electron beam to build up structures layer by layer directly from powdered metals and wire feed stock. It has been determined from previous work that solidification cooling rate and thermal gradients are the important factors for controlling microstructure (grain size and morphology) and resulting mechanical properties of the deposit. The …

Aircraft Thermal Management Using Loop Heat Pipes, Andrew J. Fleming

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The objective of this thesis was to determine the feasibility of using loop heat pipes to dissipate waste heat from power electronics to the skin of a fighter aircraft and examine the performance characteristics of a titanium-water loop heat pipe under stationary and elevated acceleration fields. In the past, it has been found that the boundary condition at the condenser can be a controlling factor in the overall performance of this type of thermal management scheme. Therefore, the heat transfer removed from the aircraft skin has been determined by modeling the wing as a flat plate at zero-incidence as a …

Separation And Vorticity Transport In Massively-Unsteady Low Reynolds Number Flows, Charles Webb

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There is no doubt that nature has existed as the very inspiration for many of technological achievements of today. Flight is no exception though our conventional methods of flight seem to be completely devoid of any flapping modes commonly seen in insects and birds. This is because the unsteady characteristics of natures keen flight capabilities is very difficult to study. However, as our computational and experimental methods of investigation have improved, our imagination again begins to turn to this one aspect of flight that has eluded man thus far. Birds and more specifically insects are capable of flying at such …

Dual Mode Scramjet: A Computational Investigation On Combustor Design And Operation, Ryan Timothy Milligan

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Numerical analysis was performed on a Dual-Mode Scramjet isolator-combustor. Preliminary analysis was performed to form a baseline geometry. Another study validated the results of a 2D model compared to a 3D model. Stable combustion was shown at two different flight conditions, M=3.0 and M=2.5. A marginal 5% decrease in stream thrust was shown by introducing a 50/50 mix of methane and ethylene. Based on the results of the preliminary analysis, detailed geometry analysis was performed on the 3D baseline geometry. Adding a new set of cavity feeding injectors increased the overall stream thrust and the equivalence ratio in the cavity. …

Conductance Modulation In Bilayer Graphene Nanoribbons, Kirti Kant Paulla

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Graphene nanoribbons are among the recently discovered carbon nanostructures, with unique characteristics for novel applications. One of the most important features of graphene nanoribbons, from both basic science and application points of view, is their electrical conductivity. In this research, we study the electrical conductance of single and double layer nanoribbons of specified widths and edge geometries. The calculations are carried out using ab initio quantum mechanical simulations for obtaining the optimized atomic configurations of the nanoribbons and their electronic structures. These results are then used to calculate the conductance characteristics via Green's function approach to the Landauer's formalism. We …

The Effect Of Variable Gravity On The Cooling Performance Of A Partially-Confined Fc-72 Spray, Travis Edward Michalak

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This thesis discusses the effects of a variable-gravity environment on the performance of a subcooled partially-confined spray. An experiment, consisting of a test chamber, the associated flow loops, and instrumentation, was fabricated and flown on the NASA Reduced-Gravity Testing Platform. This modified KC-135 aircraft followed a parabolic flight path to provide various acceleration levels. The spray chamber contained two opposing nozzles spraying onto Thick Film Resistor (TFR) heaters, which were mounted on insulating glass pedestals. Only the upward facing heater was used during this testing. Thermocouples under the heater in the glass pedestal were used to determine the heater surface …

Identifying Structurally Significant Items Using Matrix Reanalysis Techniques, Bhushan M. Kable

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Knowledge of critical structural items for an aircraft structural system is crucial for any risk integrated design and maintenance procedure. These critical items are those whose failure can cause catastrophic damage to the entire structure or result in loss of availability. For example, failure of the fuselage longeron of an F-15 aircraft resulted in the separation of the aircraft cockpit from the rest of the structure, resulting in a complete loss of the aircraft. This is clearly a critical structural item that was identified during the design process but did not have appropriate design, manufacturing, or maintenance controls that could …

Rheological Study Of Polymer Flow Past Rough Surfaces With Slip Boundary Conditions, Anoosheh Niavarani, Nikolai V. Priezjev

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

The slip phenomena in thin polymer films confined by either flat or periodically corrugated surfaces are investigated by molecular dynamics and continuum simulations. For atomically flat surfaces and weak wall-fluid interactions, the shear rate dependence of the slip length has a distinct local minimum which is followed by a rapid increase at higher shear rates. For corrugated surfaces with wavelength larger than the radius of gyration of polymer chains, the effective slip length decays monotonically with increasing corrugation amplitude. At small amplitudes, this decay is reproduced accurately by the numerical solution of the Stokes equation with constant and rate-dependent local …

Slip Boundary Conditions For Shear Flow Of Polymer Melts Past Atomically Flat Surfaces, Anoosheh Niavarani, Nikolai V. Priezjev

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

Molecular dynamics simulations are carried out to investigate the dynamic behavior of the slip length in thin polymer films confined between atomically smooth thermal surfaces. For weak wall-fluid interactions, the shear rate dependence of the slip length acquires a distinct local minimum followed by a rapid growth at higher shear rates. With increasing fluid density, the position of the local minimum is shifted to lower shear rates. We found that the ratio of the shear viscosity to the slip length, which defines the friction coefficient at the liquid/solid interface, undergoes a transition from a nearly constant value to the power …

Computational And Experimental Investigations Into Aerospace Plasmas, William Thomas Bennett

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Investigations into two different fields of plasma research are presented here. These include the study of ion engine performance and the use of plasma discharges for flow control. In the area of ion engine performance, optimizing electron confinement is the primary goal of this work. The work of prior researchers was expanded through the study of the cathode emission location and the energy of the primary electrons. Cathode position was shown to have minimal effect on confinement length. For electron energy values greater than 20eV the effect on confinement length was also found to be very small. The strength of …

Risk Based Analysis And Design Af Stiffened Plates, Heather B. Dwire

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The traditional Risk Based Design (RBD) process involves designing a structure based on risk estimates obtained during several iterations of an optimization routine. This approach is computationally expensive for large-scale aircraft structural systems. The main objective of this research is to establish a RBD algorithm and produce RBD plots for stiffened plates. Basic steps to check functionality will be done by first analyzing a flat plate for which closed formed equations are available and then moving to more complex geometries like stiffened plates.

Therefore, the concept of RBD plots that can be used for both structural sizing and risk assessment …

Design And Analysis Of A Mach 3 Dual Mode Scramjet Combustor, Christopher Ryan Corbin

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Low speed operation of a dual mode scramjet engine is important to the development of a two stage to orbit reusable launch vehicle. This study investigates the Mach 3 operation of a dual mode scramjet engine. SRGULL, a one-dimensional cycle code for scramjet engines, and VULCAN, a computational fluid dynamics code capable of solving reacting flows, are used in this study. Staged injection is investigated to allow more heat release at a low flight Mach number condition so that more thrust can be achieved and inlet unstart is avoided. The nominal case has one injector located 1.067 meters downstream of …

Effect Of A Graded Layer On The Plastic Dissipation During Mixed-Mode Fatigue Crack Growth On Plastically Mismatched Interfaces, Craig M. Baudendistel

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Recent work has proposed a dissipated energy theory of fatigue crack growth in layered materials under mixed-mode loading. An inherent assumption of this prior work is that a perfect crack exists along the interface joining the top and bottom layers. The current work extends the approach of previous studies to incorporate a grading of plastic properties between the two layers through parametric finite element modeling with ABAQUS. An elastic-plastic 2D model using 8-node biquadratic elements was used to map the plastic dissipation of a two layer specimen with a grading of plastic properties parallel to the crack face. This property …

Global Optimization Of An Aircraft Thermal Management System Through Use Of A Genetic Algorithm, Christopher T. Allen

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Optimization algorithms utilize known information about the system to identify solutions that are more efficient and meet the requirements of the user. The algorithms require an objective function, or formula (linear or nonlinear) that models what the user is looking to optimize, in order to begin the search for a more feasible solution. Because optimization problems can involve either linearor non-linear functions, various algorithms have been created that can locate optimum solutions faster depending on the type of objective function being optimized.

This research focuses on optimizing an aircrafts thermal management system by using one such algorithm. This was performed …

The Influence Of Thickness On The Complex Modulus Of Air Plasma Sprayed Ceramic Blend Coatings, Jason Edgar Hansel

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Previous research suggests that damping of metallic beams that have a hard ceramic coating applied on them is proportional to the coating thickness. This indicates that the damping is a volume dependent material property. Since thickness variations are likely in an actual application, it is essential to understand the role that coating thickness plays in damping effectiveness. For this research, a series of tests were conducted using substrate beams of 90 mil Ti-6Al-4V, coated with 3 mils of an air plasma sprayed NiCrAlY bond coat followed by a Titania-Alumina ceramic blend coating applied via air plasma spray in one of …

The Effect Of Variable Gravity On The Cooling Performance Of A 16-Nozzle Spray Array, Levi J. Elston

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The objective of this thesis was to investigate the cooling performance of a 16-nozzle spray array, using FC-72 as the working fluid, in variable gravity conditions with additional emphasis on fluid management and flow stability. A flight test experiment was modified to accommodate a 16-nozzle spray array, which was then tested in the parabolic flight trajectory environment of NASA's C-9 reduced gravity aircraft. The 16-nozzle array was designed to cool a 25.4 x 25.4 [mm] area on a thick film resistive heater used to simulate electronic components. Data was taken and reduced as a result of flight tests conducted over …

Non-Linear Shunting Of Piezo-Actuators For Vibration Suppression, Anisetti Anusha

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Vibrations at a resonant frequency lead to catastrophic failure or at the very least, shorten the life span of the structure due to fatigue. These problems force engineers to implement damping techniques. Smart materials have been used over two decades to reduced vibration amplitudes. Recently, there has been much research and development on smart materials and structures.

This work introduces an innovative approach for vibration suppression using passively shunted piezolectric materials. Initially linear circuit elements such as resistors, capacitors, and inductances, or building a non-linear circuit with different impedance designs were used. Instead of such elements, a switched electromechanical shunt …

The Effect Of Dissolved Air On The Cooling Performance Of A Partially-Confined Fc-72 Spray, Rebekah Lee Puterbaugh

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The objective of this thesis is to investigate the heat transfer performance of a partially-confined FC-72 spray with varying dissolved air concentrations. An experimental test rig consisting of a spray chamber coupled to a fluid delivery loop system was used to obtain temperature, pressure, and critical heat flux (CHF) data. A downward facing nozzle within the spray chamber allowed the FC-72 fluid to be sprayed onto an upward facing, thick-film, resistor heater. The heater was mounted onto a glass post, with a sump system to allow removal of excess fluid. Type-E thermocouples were imbedded in the post to obtain temperature …

Effect Of Surface Roughness On Rate-Dependent Slip In Simple Fluids, Nikolai V. Priezjev

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

Molecular dynamics simulations are used to investigate the influence of molecular-scale surface roughness on the slip behavior in thin liquid films. The slip length increases almost linearly with the shear rate for atomically smooth rigid walls and incommensurate structures of the liquid/solid interface. The thermal fluctuations of the wall atoms lead to an effective surface roughness, which makes the slip length weakly dependent on the shear rate. With increasing the elastic stiffness of the wall, the surface roughness smoothes out and the strong rate dependence is restored again. Both periodically and randomly corrugated rigid surfaces reduce the slip length and …

Rate-Dependent Slip Boundary Conditions For Simple Fluids, Nikolai V. Priezjev

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

The dynamic behavior of the slip length in a fluid flow confined between atomically smooth surfaces is investigated using molecular dynamics simulations. At weak wall-fluid interactions, the slip length increases nonlinearly with the shear rate provided that the liquid/solid interface forms incommensurable structures. A gradual transition to the linear rate-dependence is observed upon increasing the wall-fluid interaction. We found that the slip length can be well described by a function of a single variable that in turn depends on the in-plane structure factor, contact density and temperature of the first fluid layer near the solid wall. Extensive simulations show that …

Modeling And Simulation Of A Microturbine Generator To Be Coupled With A Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell For Distributed Generation, Karleine M. Justice

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Distributed generation is desired when the individual energy requirements ranging from 25-75 kW of office buildings, restaurants, hospitals and apartments can not be met by the current electric utility grid. Microturbine generators as stand alone power generation systems have been designed to meet these requirements. For power requirements up to 50 MW, hybrid fuel cell systems offer higher efficiency and lower levels of pollutant emissions with more advanced fuel energy savings than non-hybrid systems. The objective of this project is to develop a simulation of a microturbine generator as a stand alone power generation system to validate a microturbine generator …

Phase-Locked Piv Investigation Of The Effects Of The Blowing Ratio Of A Pulsed Vortex Generator Jet In A Low-Pressure Turbine, Nathan Michael Woods

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At very high altitudes the Reynolds number flow through the low pressure turbine section of the gas turbine engine can drop below 25,000. At these low Reynolds numbers the flow is laminar and extremely susceptible to separation which can lead to increased losses and reduced lift. Small jets of air injected through the suction surface of the airfoil, called Vortex Generator Jets (VGJs), have been shown successful in suppressing separation and maintaining attached flow. Pulsing of these jets has been shown to be as effective as steady jets while reducing the amount of mass flow needed. An experiment using Particle …

Characterization And Modeling Methodology Of Polytetrafluoroethylene Based Reactive Materials For The Development Of Parametric Models, Stephen D. Rosencrantz

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Certain materials, when impacting a target at high velocity will chemically react due to the shock wave passing through them, thereby increasing the damage done by the material. In particular, the reactive materials of interest are capable of acting as both structure and explosive, allowing them to achieve an effect similar to a High Explosive Incindiary (HEI), without the complexity and added mass of fuses. There are a large number of materials/material combinations that could be used in reactive munitions. The purpose of this effort is to determine an efficient analytical characterization methodology that can be validated with a minimal …

Titanium Alloyed With Boron, Seshacharyulu Tamirisakandala, Daniel B. Miracle, Raghavan Srinivasan, Jay S. Gunasekera

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

Small additions of boron to conventional titanium alloys have been found to produce significant changes to the microstructures and associated properties. Grain refinement and improved strength and stiffness are first-order effects, which lead to possibilities for developing novel and affordable processing methodologies and to enhance performance over conventional titanium alloys. In this article, we introduce this new class of titanium alloys and describe unique formability benefits achieved via engineering microstructures.

X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopic Studies Of Dolomite Surfaces Exposed To Undersaturated And Supersaturated Aqueous Solutions, Xiaoming Hu, Pratik Joshi, Sharmila M. Mukhopadhyay, Steven R. Higgins

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

Cleaved surfaces of dolomite were studied using ex-situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) following exposure of the surfaces to various experimental conditions. Dolomite samples exposed to air, to a highly undersaturated solution (0.1 M NaCl, pH = 9), and to solution with a supersaturation (-Delta mu/kT) of 5.5 (pH = 9) were investigated with semiquantitative methods of analysis to ascertain the degree of non-stoichiometry resulting at the dolomite surface from reactive conditions. It was found that the dolomite cleavage surface in undersaturated solution was not altered significantly from the stoichiometric surface termination. The composition of the cleaved surface after exposure to …

Manipulation Of Polystyrene Microparticles On A Microchannel Glass, Ravi Mamillapalli, Henry D. Young

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Bulk quantities of spherical microbeads have various applications in research and industrial fields. Simple techniques are required to be developed in order to manipulate and modify large numbers of these beads simultaneously. In our experiment, a microchannel glass-based microfluidic device is used to actuate large numbers of microbeads in parallel. The microchannel glass used in these experiments contains channels 4.1 μm in diameter. The microbeads are polystyrene beads which are superparamagnetic in nature and 5-6 μm in diameter. An aqueous suspension of microbeads is injected into a 2-chamber fluid cell that contains a separator, microchannel glass. The beads are reversibly …